


No Names

by DelilahMidnight



Category: Charmed (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-27 17:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17166107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelilahMidnight/pseuds/DelilahMidnight
Summary: This was a gift for forlorn-kumquat on Tumblr and i am SO SORRY its late i just have no planning skills whatsoever!!! Happy Christmas please enjoy this slow-burn baby madness!!





	1. one

     “Why are there cops around the house? I thought Harry said this place was abandoned?”

     Mel put the car in park and checked the rearview mirror. “I don’t know,” she said at last, “but if there’s police involved this could get hairy, fast.”

     She shifted so she could turn to face her little sister in the backseat. “That means no bright ideas from you, okay Maggie? We need to be in and out of there as fast as possible, without attracting their attention.”

     Maggie gave Mel an affronted look and opened her mouth to retort, but Macy, who was in the passenger seat watching the decrepit old mansion through the sideview mirror, interrupted, “I don’t think that’s going to be possible, guys.”

     Her sisters turned to look out the rear windshield. Two uniformed officers were approaching their car. Maggie swore. “What do we do now?”

     Macy’s mind raced, and she asked Mel, “Do you think you can freeze them _and_ the whole house at the same time?”

     Mel hesitated, “I—what? M-maybe—I’ve never tried on such a huge area before—”

     “Do it,” Macy ordered. “Freeze everything, and keep it frozen. Maggie and I will head in and vanquish the demon,” she held up and shook the little vial of potion, “and we’ll be back before you know it.”

     “But what if you need the Power of Three, I should—”

     “Whatever we’re gonna do we need to do it _now_!” Maggie hissed. The officers were almost level with the girls’ SUV. Macy met Mel’s eyes and nodded.

     Mel took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and brandished her hands in a sweeping gesture. After a moment, Macy peeked out the window and, seeing the officers unmoving, opened the door and started walking swiftly towards the house. Maggie opened her door before scooching back toward her sister.

     “Be right back,” she said, and kissed Mel’s cheek, which was hardened in a frown of concentration, before following Macy, slamming the car door behind her.

 

     The minutes stretched on, and Mel’s magic stretched with it; she felt it like a strain, a pull, inside her bones. It wasn’t painful, but it was slightly uncomfortable: she wasn’t used to holding her magic for such a long time, over an area she couldn’t actually see. Silently she prayed her sisters would hurry.

 

     Inside the house, Macy and Maggie had separated, electing to search different floors of the towering, gloomy house. Maggie had just finished sweeping an ornate, but outrageously old-fashioned drawing room, when she heard Macy cry out from above. “MACY!” she bellowed, sprinting towards the stairs at the front of the house.

     “I’m fine, Maggie!” Maggie’s heart skipped a beat. “I’m fine—um, but you better get up here.”

     Maggie found Macy standing in what looked like a very stately, old nursery, complete with ornately carved dark wooden crib and rocking chair. “What happened?” she asked, coming up to stand beside Macy, who was staring into the crib.

     Macy didn’t answer, but Maggie saw instantly What had happened.

     She let out an involuntary noise and moved to pick it up, but Macy grabbed her arm. “What?” she squeaked.

     Macy hadn’t yet torn her eyes from the sleeping baby. “I don’t—think its human.”

     Maggie would have scoffed, except she knew better by now not to dismiss even the most outlandish of ideas. Instead, she turned back to the crib and asked, “Are we gonna have to vanquish this baby? Because I gotta say, that’s a line I’m not sure I’m willing to cross just yet.”

     Macy finally looked up at Maggie, thoughtful and a little afraid. “I don’t think I can do it either.”

     Maggie watched Macy for a moment, then, before she could stop her, scooped up the baby in one swift movement and said, “Come on. We’ll take her to Mel. If anyone will know what to do with her,” she added, starting carefully down the stairs, “she will.”

 

     “What the _hell_ do you mean, ‘we have to keep her until we can find her a family’?! Maggie, _¿eres tonta?_ , it’s a _demon_ —!”

     “Harry!” Maggie rounded stubbornly on their Whitelighter. “Help me out here.”

     “Well,” said Harry, “while it is highly unusual for a demon to— _mate_ with a human—” Mel made a disgusted noise “—it’s not entirely impossible and, unfortunately, Maggie’s right. If it turns out the child’s human DNA has won out over its demonic genes then, yes, it is an innocent, and it is your _duty_ ,” Harry raised his voice over Mel’s outraged protests, “to protect it from anyone who might do it harm.”

     “Can you guys stop calling her an ‘it’?” Maggie interjected hotly. “She’s not an ‘it’, she’s a ‘she’, and even if she _is_ half demon she deserves respect.”

     Before Mel could start on a tirade about the absurdity of having to choose appropriate pronouns for a _demon_ , Macy quickly asked Maggie, “How do you know she’s a she? You haven’t even checked her diaper.”

     Maggie blinked and said, “Oh. I don’t know. I just…felt it. When I held her. She’s a girl. And it’s our _job_ ,” she added, turning to Mel, “to take care of her.” Mel opened her mouth to respond angrily, but at that moment a whimper came from the living room, and a few seconds later a distraught wail sounded through the house. Maggie raised stubborn eyebrows at her sister and walked away to pick up the infant, who was taking advantage of the mansion’s acoustics to fill it with her impressive voice.

     When she reappeared in the kitchen, she was gently bouncing the baby and making soothing sounds at her as she cried and waved her arms fretfully. Harry moved over to adjust Maggie’s grip, and Macy looked over to Mel, wanting to share an amused, impressed look, but Mel had closed her eyes and tilted her head back, rubbing her hands over her face. Maggie could just hear her mutter “ _Madre de Dios_ ,” their mom’s favorite oath.

     Maggie cocked an eyebrow and cooed, “ _’ta bien_ , baby, it’s ok… _ya ya ya_ , it’s ok babygirl, look…don’t worry, _princesa_ … _Titi_ Maggie’s got you…”

     Mel looked murderous.

 

     Macy plopped down gracefully onto the couch next to Mel, the baby wrapped snugly in a blanket and asleep in her arms. “You know she’s not so bad once you figure out how to deal with the crying,” she whispered bracingly. “Either she’s hungry, or needs a change, or she’s sleepy, and it’s not too hard to figure out which by process of elimination.”

     “Thank you for that sage wisdom, Dr. Vaughn,” Mel replied sourly. “Just keep that thing away from me, I don’t trust it.”

     “Oh come on, Mel, even if she is part demon, what could she possibly do to us? She can’t even hold her head up by herself yet!”

     Mel sat in sullen silence, scrolling through her phone.

     Maggie had spent the afternoon shopping with Harry, who had proved her willing accomplice, giving advice on everything from which formula and diapers to buy, to which given names correlated with high levels of success and intelligence in later life. In the end she had come home carrying the baby in a front facing carrier and about a dozen bags and boxes on her arms, announcing that the baby’s name was Maya and that she would volunteer for first shift to watch her for the evening. In the few hours since then, Maggie had proved herself surprisingly maternal, expeditiously and excitedly transforming the downstairs guest bedroom into a nursery, complete with everything save the animal-patterned wallpaper, with a bemused Macy’s help. She had drawn up schedules for who would watch Maya when during the week and prepped about a half-dozen bottles of formula and stored them in the fridge. She had even cast a protection spell and a reverse-silence spell in the baby’s room so that no matter how loud things got in the house, Maya would be safe and would stay asleep.

     After showing Macy how to feed, burp, and change Maya, Maggie had passed baby duty on to her sister, about an hour ago, so she could finish up her English lit essay and shower before bed. Macy, although she had no real experience with infants or children of any age, seemed to get the hang of it all pretty quickly. It wasn’t _easy_ , but it was simple—a fact that she had tried to point out to Mel; but Mel was still furious at being stuck with a demon baby, and even more so because, being the only unemployed sister, Maggie had reasoned that it only made sense for Mel to watch Maya during the day, while Macy worked and Maggie attended class.

     Mel glowered at the baby, whom Macy had settled on the couch between them, as it made little pouty faces in its sleep. She had never wanted kids--never--never been interested in the dollies and dress-up games that Maggie had favored. When Maggie wanted to play house, Mel was always the Papá, because that meant she could pretend to hammer away on the outside of their playhouse or cook on the pretend grill outside, while Maggie cooed at and coddled the baby doll inside. She couldn't believe that all these years later, in her prime, when she should be looking for a new prominent position in her field and advancing her career, she was going to be saddled with this unwanted responsibility--an obligation that wasn't even her doing! It was patently unjust.

     Even more than anger about the baby, she was afraid that whatever had been in that house—whatever demon they were supposed to have vanquished—was going to show up anytime looking for its demon spawn. They couldn’t afford to be so vulnerable to an attack, especially with the Source of All Evil growing stronger every passing day.

     “Look, if you want, I’ll take her for the night,” Macy offered, her expression soft. Clearly she had been watching Mel's inner turmoil flitting across her face. “I’ll wake you up when it’s time for me to leave for work, okay?”

     Mel ground her teeth in frustration, but then looked up at Macy with a sigh. “Yeah, alright. Thanks, Mace. I really appreciate it.”

 

     The morning came much too soon for Mel, who was woken by a cheerful Macy carrying a cup of strong, dark coffee. “She slept almost the whole night,” Macy told her, surprise evident in her voice as she handed Mel the mug. “I had to give her a bottle around 2 a.m., but then she went right back to sleep. She’s still sleeping now.”

     “Thanks, Macy. I’ll be down in a minute.” She took a deep drink from the steaming coffee mug, then threw off the covers and reluctantly started making her way downstairs, yawning widely.

 

     She was still yawning as her sisters left the house, Maggie calling a stern admonition from the curb: “Don’t be mean to her, Mel. Remember, she’s our innocent now!” Mel scowled and mimicked her sister as she closed and locked the front door with a bang, and instantly regretted it when she heard a familiar whimper from the guest bedroom.

     “ _Comemierda_ ,” she muttered, then, as the cried grew into a wail, she called, “I’m coming!” Her first day as a parent had begun.

 

     “Come on, give me a break. She doesn’t even look like you.”

     Something irrational in Mel’s brain snapped. “ _Excuse_ me? What is that supposed to mean, exactly? Just because she’s blonde and has blue eyes she can’t be my daughter? How dare you, I should have you reported for discrimination—”

     The shouting brought down three or four other officers, as well as another bout of desperate, ear-splitting wailing from Maya in her arms and _Jesus Christ this has to be a demon_ , Mel thought, still yelling indignantly at the hapless junior officer, who was now practically sweating bullets behind the desk, _there’s no way a human baby is this loud—that’s its power, it kills by screaming and any second now we’re all going to—_

     “—Well no wonder she’s crying, you’re holding her all wrong! Who told you to bring a baby into a goddamn police station, can’t you tell you’re overstimulating her?!” Suddenly her arms were empty, the screaming had stopped, and Mel’s breath had vanished from her lungs as she looked into the face of the one person she thought she would never see again.

     “Niko.”


	2. Chapter 2

     The officer looked back at her over Maya’s head, rubbing a hand firmly against the baby’s tiny back, and gave Mel a suspicious once-over. “That’s Detective Hamada to you. Have we met before?”

     Mel blanched and shook herself internally, trying to regain her composure: She didn’t recognize her—she was invisible. “I—n-no, Off—uh, Detective, sorry, I—I must have heard one of the other officers—” Her brain was refusing to work: how could Niko be here, after she had cast that spell so many weeks ago? Wasn’t it supposed to have stopped her from coming back?

     Niko’s eyes were still narrowed with distrust behind her square-framed glasses, but as she was still holding Mel’s baby, she was a bit preoccupied. Instead she reassured the other officers who had come down with her, sent them way, and asked the sweaty youth behind the desk what was going on.

     “Ma’am, this lady—”

     “I have a name,” Mel growled.

     “ _Miss Vera_ here wants to file adoption papers for this baby, but she has no records, no birth certificate, no passport, and she claims to be her mother even though she’s clearly…” He trailed off, gesturing vaguely with his hand at Mel, as if this could be as easily understood as whatever noun or adjective he was seemingly trying to drag from his subconscious.

     Still expertly bouncing Maya, the infant’s blonde head tucked into her shoulder, Niko raised her eyebrows in a question, clearly refusing to let the officer off the hook. “She’s what, Tyler, young? Attractive? Suffering from a—terrible taste in loungewear, what?”

     Mel, who was dressed in sweats and a t-shirt, felt her jaw dropped in indignation, but her heart gave a feeble lurch. It really was the same blunt, no-nonsense Niko she had fallen in love with, standing real and solid before her. She tried not to stare at the way Niko’s hair ( _When had it grown so long again?_ Mel thought) swung in front of her stubborn chin as she swayed with the hiccupping baby, or how her fingers, so different from Mel’s long, bony ones, splayed over the infant’s back and neck protectively.

     “The kid’s white!” Tyler finally spluttered, “and she’s—”

     “Oh for God’s sake,” snapped Niko irritably, “don’t be such a racist dumbass, Tyler, skin color isn’t that simple—”

     “If I could clear up some things,” Mel interjected delicately, finally pulling herself out of her own pining thoughts and plucking the baby out of Niko’s grasp, “She’s—Maya’s not mine, biologically,” she invented, thinking fast. “My—my girlfriend—we just used donor sperm, but, um…I—well, I—I don’t know where she is now. I guess she must have had some—some issues that she wasn’t dealing with and she—she left.  A few weeks ago. I think she’s gone for good.” Mel tried very, _very_ hard to ignore the way her heart clenched at the shock and genuine concern on Niko’s face, and tried to look like someone who had just lost their life partner and mother of their child.

     “I’m so sorry, Miss Vera,” Niko said, putting a gentle hand on Mel’s elbow. “That must have been so difficult for you to endure.”

     “Yeah, it was,” Mel replied, avoiding Niko’s eyes on the pretext of fixing Maya’s bib around her neck. “And now this jerk is trying to tell me I can’t have custody of my own _daughter_ —”

     Tyler opened his mouth angrily but Niko cut him off, “No one’s saying that Miss Vera, it’s just—uh, it’s really hard to have any sort of formal papers drawn up without the child’s birth certificate or—or both biological parents present—”

     Mel blurted, “It was a home birth. We didn’t want a hospital involved unless it was absolutely necessary so we—we did it in the bathtub at home.” She continued fiddling with Maya’s onesie buttons and tried not to let it show on her face how loudly she was internally screaming. She was such a _shit_ liar, she was going to blow this whole thing and get arrested for kidnapping a baby and lying to the police and then they would take Maya and put her in foster care and there would be a _demon baby_ floating around somewhere terrorizing some nice suburban family—

     There was a pause, and then Niko’s hand was on her upper back. “Miss Vera, why don’t we go to one of the rooms inside, it’s a bit more private and comfortable—I can have Tyler here bring you a cup of coffee and then we can—we can get this all sorted out.”

     “I—” She tried, Mel really, _really_ tried not to look Niko straight in the eyes, but she did and then there was warmth and understanding shining there, and Mel knew she was a goner.

 

     Two hours later, Mel had managed to concoct an apparently believable story about her girlfriend “Angie”, and how they had been in love since high school and ready to start a family together, until Angie’s sudden and inexplicable abandonment of her girlfriend and their daughter. Mel, no great shakes at acting or lying, had tried to make it sound like she was still in shock over the ordeal, and was now simply trying to tie up loose ends so that she could move on with her life. “I don’t want Maya to feel like her mom abandoned her. Her mom is right here,” she said, placing her hand on her chest. “I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

     Her story of a sister-assisted home birth seemed to satisfy Niko, who had charmed Maya over the course of the meeting with her mastery of peek-a-boo. “Well, it seems like you’re in good shape in terms of lifestyle for taking care of a baby,” Niko said, scanning her notes, “although—you did say you were recently unemployed?”

     “Oh yeah,” Mel said, mentally kicking herself, “but that was from before, uh, to—to help take care of Maya at home. But I plan to go back to work as soon as I can,” she added quickly, “and my sister who lives with us is working too, so…”

     “Right, well as long as we can get documentation confirming your current address, income status, things like that, I don’t see a reason why anything should get in the way of you formally adopting Maya,” Niko smiled reassuringly. “It is a shame that you have to go through the trouble of doing it this way, but I don’t think anyone could have predicted your girlfriend leaving you like that—I truly am sorry,” and there was her hand again, and there were those warm brown eyes, and Mel couldn’t look away, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but nod her head and smile awkwardly.

 

     When Mel left the police station, she was carrying a sleeping Maya in one arm and in the other, a thick sheaf of papers which included Niko’s detailed notes, legal forms requiring copies of doctors records and signatures from her sisters as “witnesses” to the birth of her “daughter”, and more forms that would prove the fictional Angie’s fictional pregnancy and the fictional family’s place of residence.

     Mel’s head was spinning a little, not only because of all the information and paperwork she was now responsible for, or the speed at which she was apparently going to become mother to demon-spawn, but because when she had risen to leave, Niko had passed her a sleeping Maya, and their hands had briefly brushed;

because Niko had looked with soft eyes at the baby, the corners of her eyes crinkling in a familiar way that made Mel’s heart ache;

because she had then put her hand on Mel’s bicep and lifted those same soft, crinkled eyes to Mel’s, and whatever she had seen there had caused her goodbye to die in her throat, and for a split second they had been electrically connected, by touch and by breath and, Mel could swear, by soul—

and then Niko had dropped her eyes and swallowed and wished them the best of luck, and promised to only be a phone call away should they need her, slipping her card into the folder in the crook of Mel’s arm.

     Mel had walked out in a daze, barely remembering to be snide to Tyler as he held the door for her and Maya. As she bundled the baby into the car seat Maggie had installed for her this morning, Mel had resolved, reluctantly and with a heavy heart, to shred Niko’s business card and notes, and give both the detective and the precinct as wide a berth as possible. It was the only way she would be able keep Niko safe.

 

     “MELLIE! _¿Donde e’ta’?_ ”

     “In the kitchen,” Mel called, wiping Maya’s chin yet again with the dishcloth and trying to get more cereal in her mouth than on her clothes. _I should have used a bib_ , she thought to herself, disgruntled.

     Maggie came in like a hurricane, heeled boots echoing on the hardwood floor as she all but threw her bag on the kitchen counter.

     “You would _not_ believe the day I’ve just had, I’m literally about to explode, I can’t STAND MEN, oh my _GOD_ —” Without warning she scooped Maya up out of her feeding chair and started baby-talking her, her demeanor changing instantly as she nuzzled Maya’s sticky chin.

     “Maggie!” protested Mel.

     “Not now, Mel,” Maggie barked, “I need my baby-fix, otherwise I'm gonna march down to Alpha Rho Nu and vanquish Connor Paulson’s _pinche pendejo_ white ass!”

     Mel threw up her hands, rolling her eyes at her sister’s dramatics and turning to greet Macy, who had just entered the kitchen, far more calmly and gracefully than their sibling.

     “Hey. How was she today?” Macy asked, nodding toward Maya, who was currently receiving raspberries on her tummy from Maggie. And then, after a double-take, she said, “What’s wrong?”

     “What? Nothing,” Mel said evasively. “Today was good. We tried carrots for the first time and decided we liked them, so. That’s good,” she finished lamely.

     "The royal 'we', huh? Don't tell me you're getting attached," Macy teased, and then frowned slightly. “Did something happen at the police station? They didn’t give you trouble, did they?”

     Mel snorted, “When are the police anything _but_ trouble? I'm fine, Mace, honestly.”

     Maggie, who was still dancing Maya around the kitchen while searching for a snack, waltzed by casually behind Mel and touched her cheek with the back of her hand, then stopped dead and placed a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Mellie, what happened? Your anxiety is through the roof.”

     Mel shot her a look of pure aggravation.

     “How many times have I told you not to read me without my permission?” she said furiously. Neither sister responded, and Maya began fussing and squirming, making earnest sounds and reaching out to Mel, who guessed that she hadn’t yet had enough to eat. She took Maya from Maggie and, placing the baby back in her feeding chair, told the other two about her encounter with Niko at the station.

     Maggie was clearly excited, although she was trying to hide her feelings, but Macy looked more concerned.

     “But shouldn’t the spell you cast have prevented her from coming back into your life?” she asked.

     “That’s what I thought, but apparently not. I’ll just have to avoid her and the station and not go back there again,” Mel answered, morosely spooning cereal into Maya’s mouth and watching her lip most of it back out again.

     “But why?” asked Maggie tentatively. “The spell was meant to make it as if you never met in the past, not prevent you from meeting in the future. Maybe her being back here means you’re _meant_ to be in each other’s lives, you know?”

     “No,” said Mel firmly. “I don’t care what’s meant to be Maggie, I am not putting her in danger gain. I refuse to.”

     “But Mel—”

     “But nothing, Maggie,  _¡ya basta!_ ” cried Mel, smacking the little green spoon on the counter in frustration. “I’m not doing this again, okay? We have a _choice_ , alright, we’re witches. We _choose_ to put ourselves in danger to protect people from supernatural stuff that they can’t deal with. That’s our choice. Niko doesn’t have that. Niko is—amazing, and brilliant, and—” she swallowed, her throat suddenly tight, “—she’s strong, but she’s just human. She can’t—I can’t ask her to be part of my world when I know how dangerous it is. I _can’t_.”

     Maya began fussing, making _ma-ma-ma_ sounds and gumming her fingers in frustration. Macy gently touched Mel’s hand so she’d relinquish the spoon and took over feeding, while Mel looked up at Maggie helplessly.

     “Don’t ask me to think this over again, Mago. It was hard enough to see her again after all this time, I…” She shook her head.

     “Ok Mel, ok. I’m sorry,” she said, reaching out to rub Mel’s shoulder. “We’ll stay away from her, if that’s what you want,” she assured, looking up for confirmation at Macy, who nodded.

     “Thanks guys,” Mel said gratefully. There was an uncomfortable pause, and then she asked, a bit awkwardly, “Um, Maggie, if you can give Maya a bath when Macy’s done, I’ll get dinner started? Is _arroz_ _junto_ ok?”


End file.
